Ernest Bevin

Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881-14 April 1951) was the British Minister of Labor from 13 May 1940 to 23 May 1945, succeeding Ernest Brown and preceding Rab Butler, and Foreign Secretary from 27 July 1945 to 9 March 1951, succeeding Anthony Eden and preceding Herbert Morrison. He was a member of the Labor Party.

Biography
Ernest Bevin was born in Winsford, Somerset, England on 9 March 1881, and he began work in Bristol as a van driver. He considered becoming a Baptist minister, but he instead emerged as a leader of dockworkers, and he became assistant secretary of the Dockers' Union in 1911 before persuading eighteen unions to merge to form the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1922. His union supported the miners in the 1926 general strike, but he was also active in negotiations for a settlement. As chairman of the TUC general council from 1937, he was a crucial figure when war broke out in 1939 and, in 1940, he became Minister of Labor and National Service under Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Bevin entred Parliament as MP for Central Wandsworth and was tremendously successful in expanding and organizing a labor force to meet wartime production, very much to the envy of his German counterpart, Albert Speer. In 1945, Clement Attlee appointed him Foreign Secretary, in which post he was influential in creating NATO in 1949. He was also crucial in obtaining aid for Britain under the US Marshall Plan, although he did not manage to make Mandatory Palestine's transformation into Israel an easy one for Britain. He served as Lord Privy Seal from March 1951 until his death a month later.